Kamuniak, The Blessed One

Kamuniak, The Blessed One

In Africa, the sun blazes and helps the crops to grow and the goats to grow fat and tiresome. It sets mid evening, and makes way for the sky to turn from orange, to red, to deep blue. When it is midway through transition, Grandfather Hlaka takes his place upon the great promontory rock, and his children, and his children’s children, surround him, to hear a grand story about the heroes of old.

“What story shall it be tonight, little ones?” Grandfather Hlaka asked. As the voices of his audience began to chorus, a larger, louder sound began to drown them out.

“The beating of drums!” called a woman, standing up, the baby in her papoose shuddering out of his dreams. Others stood with her, and the men took hold of their wooden staffs, ready, should they need them. The sound of the drums became louder, coupled with the thundering of fifty warriors’ feet.

“The Umfutho tribe!” came a warning, from a young Samburu warrior, “They are coming. We must defend ourselves!” Grandfather Hlaka stood.

“All women and children, back to their huts!” he ordered, “and all men of able spirit, take your weapons!”

Everybody scattered. As the men prepared for battle, and the women disappeared into hiding with their children, only Grandfather Hlaka remained on the rock, standing tall and proud, for he was older than the Umfutho themselves, and knew there was nothing to fear in the great beyond.

“Is it safe, Grandfather?” a voice stirred Hlaka. Crawling out from underneath the rock was a young girl, Kwessie.

“No, little one,” Grandfather Hlaka sighed, “There is much trouble in our peaceful land. The Umfutho are a vicious tribe, fiercer than hyena and crocodile combined.”

“May I stay with you?” asked Kwessie. Grandfather Hlaka thought for a moment, and fingered his long, grey beard.

“You should be with your mother,” he explained.

“Mother is gone,” Kwessie replied. Hlaka opened his arms to her, and she nervously climbed up to join him.

“Then I shall protect you. We are all family here,” Grandfather Hlaka smiled, “Do not worry. Kamuniak will keep her watchful eyes upon you.” Kwessie wrinkled her nose in confusion.

“Kamuniak?” she asked. Hlaka was taken aback.

“You do not know of Kamuniak, the blessed one?” he gasped, “Then, child, sit with me, and I shall tell you all about her.”

Long ago, there was a young lioness that had been separated from her beloved pride. Unknown to the lioness, her pride had been hunted down by our ancestors because they had been preying upon our livestock. Our ancestors did not kill the lions out of cruelty, but because that is the way of our land. The lions remaining in the pride realised their wrongdoings and moved on to a different land, away from us, but they left one of their daughters behind.

The lioness was fine at first, but her loneliness began to crush her. She tried to find the friendship of other lions, but they shunned her for being a member of a rival, albeit redundant, pride. During the mating season, the lioness found herself some suitors, but, in the months that followed, no cubs grew in her belly, and she began to wonder why it was that she was doomed to be so alone in the world.

Lions, like us, seek guidance from the skies, and so, one particularly lonely night, the lioness roared to the stars.

“Great One!” she cried, “I seek answers. I have been alone for a long time now. My pride are gone, every mate I have had has gone, and I have had no children. No new prides will accept me. What have I done wrong? Why am I so alone?”

Although the lioness followed the same beliefs as every other creature, it took her by great surprise that her question was answered. A voice called to her on the winds, and she listened, her ears alert.

“Lioness,” it whispered, “I am afraid that no children will come to you. Your womb is as barren and empty as the waterhole during the dry season. I am sorry, my daughter.”

The lioness looked down at her paws. “That’s a terrible thing to hear.”

“Do not lose hope,” continued the voice, “I shall grant your wishes. I shall give to you a child. Be prepared, it will not be easy. It will be unexpected, but, once you find him, you will know.”

“Thank you,” replied the lioness, with huge relief and gratitude, “From the bottom of my heart, Great One. I thank you.”

A few weeks after the Great One had spoken to her, the lioness was out hunting. She came upon a herd of oryx antelopes. Crouching down behind the grass, she waited for the right moment to attack. When the oryx bent their heads to drink from the waterhole, she leapt from her position and began her chase, concentrating on the smallest young buck of the group. Soon, she was close enough to grab him with her powerful jaws. However, instead of pouncing, the lioness had a change of heart. She took him by the neck as a mother lioness would take her cub, and she gently, but swiftly, carried him away from the herd, ignoring the desperate cries of the calf’s mother.

“The Great One told me it would be a surprise,” the lioness thought to herself, “but this is more than I bargained for.”

The first night with his adoptive mother was hard for the little oryx. As he was only new to the world, he was confused. He had seen others like him run in fear from creatures like the sand-coloured one sleeping at his side, but she seemed very gentle. She hadn’t tried to attack him, she didn’t even growl. In fact, every time she went near him, she was careful to keep her claws fully sheathed. Feeling lost, the calf began to call to his mother, but she did not answer. She was back with the herd, mourning the loss of her baby to a savage beast.

In the days that followed, the baby oryx took to his feline mother as best he could. He realised that she was there to look after him, not to hurt him, and he even began to show affection to her, curling up beside her when they slept, and nuzzling into her, as he once did with his real mother. The lioness could not help it. She grew to love the tiny antelope, even though it was not right. In spite of her love for him, the laws of nature were cruel and always prevail. Lions and herbivores are not supposed to be friends.

The lioness became known to our people. So not to frighten her young charge, she took a hunger strike, and although her ribs pressed hard against her skin, she did not want to hunt and kill. She knew it would drive her child away. Because of this, she posed no threat to the goats and birds our ancestors kept, and the lioness began to visit us, allowing the children to pet her. If they went near the oryx, she growled a warning, so they knew he was hers, but otherwise, she was very friendly.

The lioness even met the shaman lady of our people, Vrou. As Vrou was a very spiritual and learned woman, she knew how to speak to the lioness, and asked her why she was taking care of a creature that should be her food.

“Wise woman,” whispered the lioness, bowing her head, “The Great One spoke to me. She told me that a child would come to me, and when he did, I would know. When I saw the oryx, I knew. I knew I was to look after him.”

“Very well, lioness daughter,” smiled Vrou, “You are truly blessed.”

The lioness purred and nuzzled the shaman. “Thank you, wise one. I thank you for your kindness, and I promise you, as long as I am around, there will be no danger in your land, to your people, and your children. I shall look after them as though they were my own, too.”

The lioness lived up to her word. Several times, she visited the human village, and chased troublemakers such as hyenas or wild dogs away. She played with the children, and, once she knew they could be trusted, allowed them to play with her beloved oryx-child.

Nature, though, always prevails. Having grown tired from her lack of meat, the lioness was resting beneath a tree as her baby playfully bounded along after a butterfly. Mistaking his sudden, frantic cries for a nightmare, the lioness remained in sleep until she heard the familiar growls of a male lion. Her eyes opened and she saw a juvenile, his mane just coming in, with the young calf dangling hopelessly from his jaws. The lioness did not know what to do. For such a long time she had been alone. She had only ever consorted with her own kind during the mating season, and knew how vicious they could be when in heat. Terrified, she remained underneath the tree, watching sorrowfully as her child was killed and dragged away by the rogue, reduced to what he had started out his life as; just somebody’s prey.

After a day or so to herself, to mourn, the lioness felt it necessary to return to her newfound friends at the human village. She tore through their huts and barged past them, desperately trying to find Vrou.

“I knew she would turn on us!” hissed one of the villagers, clutching her baby close, “People should stay with people, and lions with lions! That’s how nature intended it!”

“Vrou!” roared the lioness, when she finally found the shaman, “My child is dead! A rogue attacked and ate him while I was sleeping. Oh, wise one! I have failed you. I have failed you and all of your children!”

Vrou put her hand upon the lioness’s head and stroked her fur gently.

“No, feline daughter,” she whispered, “There are lessons to be learned in all things. It was simply not meant to be. Oryx are prey. Lions are predators. That is how nature wants it to be.”

The lioness cried out as mothers do when they lose their babies.

“I must leave,” she confessed, “I have been a terrible animal. That is why I was alone. That is the lesson!” The shaman shook her head.

“No,” she said firmly, “You tried your best. That is all anybody can do.”

That night, Vrou allowed the lioness to sleep beside her in her hut, but when she awoke, she had gone. Vrou searched through the lands for several days, but could find no trace of the lioness, no tracks, no indication of where she had gone, or whether she was coming back.

“Goodbye, my friend,” whispered Vrou, looking into the skies, “One day, I hope you will return to us and help protect our children again. Your devotion, albeit a strange one, is unmatched by any, my dear Kamuniak, blessed one.”

“Did Kamuniak ever come back?” Kessie asked Grandfather Hlaka, with tears in her eyes.

“No, little one, I am afraid not,” replied Hlaka, “but I feel that one day, she will, and until that day, she watches from afar, that strange, lonely lioness, and waits for other children to look after.”

“She tried her best,” smiled Kessie, “but sometimes, things are just how they are. Like when my Mother died at the hands of the warriors.”

“Sadly, yes,” Grandfather Hlaka sighed, standing and taking Kessie’s hand, “Come on, now. Let me take you to a hut, you should rest.”

As the pair wandered towards the village, the sky began to turn deep blue, and across the savannah, the animals lay down to sleep. The oryx lay with the oryx, and the lions lay with the lions, all except for one solemn lioness, that lay sleeping at the base of a tree, not far from Grandfather Hlaka’s perch on the promontory rock.